Vienna City Marathon Women’s Elite Preview and Elite Field

The course record and the Austrian record could be under threat at Sunday’s Vienna City Marathon and with them two major barriers that are ten minutes apart. While the current course best stands at 2:20:59 and an attack on that might lead to a first sub 2:20 winning time in the history of the Vienna City Marathon, no Austrian woman has ever run under 2:30. A strong group of Kenyan runners are the favorites with four of them featuring personal bests of sub 2:24. Close to her hometown Julia Mayer hopes to write Austrian marathon history on Sunday. Organisers of Austria’s major running event have registered more than 39,000 entries including races at shorter distances. Over 9,000 of them are marathon runners. The Vienna City Marathon is a World Athletics Elite Label Road Race.

Women’s course records used to be very rare for the first two decades of this century. Back in 2000 the late Italian Maura Viceconte clocked 2:23:47 and this mark then stood for almost 20 years. In 2019 Kenya’s Nancy Kiprop finally improved the record to 2:22:12. However this time the mark survived only one edition of the Vienna City Marathon and was then broken by Vibian Chepkirui. The Kenyan clocked 2:20:59 a year ago.

Kenyans Visiline Jepkesho (2:21:37), Magdalyne Masai (2:22:16), Rebecca Tanui (2:23:09) and Agnes Keino (2:23:26) are the ones who have entered the race with PBs of sub 2:24. Preparing for Vienna Magdalyne Masai showed fine form when she ran 67:07 in the Rome Ostia half marathon little over a month ago. “This PB gives me a positive feeling for Vienna. I hope to be able to fight for victory and break the course record,“ said Magdalyne Masai, who is the younger sister of the 2009 World 10,000 m Champion Linet Masai and of Moses Masai, the bronze medallist at these championships over 10,000 m.

Visiline Jepkesho is the fastest woman on the start list. Coming back after maternity leave she will run her first marathon since 2019, hoping to come back strongly. Supported by Brother Colm O’Connell in Iten, Kenya, she has won a number of marathons, among them Paris in 2016 and Rotterdam two years later. While it will be interesting to see if she can achieve a result in the region of her 2:21:37 PB fellow-Kenyans Rebecca Tanui and Agnes Keino intend to break their personal records in Vienna. “However I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself,“ said Rebecca Tanui, who took the San Sebastián Marathon last  year with 2:23:09. Agnes Keino also clocked her…